Broil King puts the Crown badge on five gas grills. The Crown 520 Shadow, model 866154, is the priciest at $999. That is the brand’s own US price, checked this week.
That is an awkward place to stand. The Crown S 490 costs less and still carries a side burner. It also has a rear rotisserie burner and a rotisserie kit. The Baron 520 Pro Shadow costs more and hands a side burner back too.
Between them sits this grill, with five burners and nothing on either side. Every dollar went under the lid. Does the biggest grate in the Crown line earn back what is missing?
45,000 BTUMain burner output
570 sq-inPrimary cook space
210 sq-inWarming rack, inside the 780 total
0Side or rear burners on the cart
First Impressions of the Broil King Crown 520 Shadow
Black on black on black. Enamel on the lid, paint on the doors, paint on the shelves. A stainless handle is about the only thing that catches light. Shadow is a finish here, not a grade.
It arrives as parts, with a separate assembly manual for each gas type. The enclosed cabinet is most of the work. At 178.0 lbs finished, this is an afternoon and a second pair of hands.
Standing, it reads wide rather than tall. The published footprint runs 61.0 inches across, 24.0 deep, 46.5 tall. Those figures appear only on Broil King’s Canadian site. Set it against a wall and the shelves still want elbow room.
Cast iron makes its case on the very first cook. The grids are slow coming up to heat. Then they hold it. A steak lifts off with dark bars rather than gray ones.
Chicken skin renders where a thinner grate would let it steam. Five knobs then change how you plan a cook. There is room to run two burners hard, two gentle, and leave the fifth cold. It takes a session or two to learn where food belongs.
Key Features of the Broil King Crown 520 Shadow
Most of this grill is one idea, repeated five times. Separate flames, a stainless layer to catch drippings, cast iron above that. A cast aluminum box holds the heat in.
- Five stainless steel Dual-Tube burners: They total 45,000 BTU and each has its own valve. Five zones across one grate is a finer division than most carts offer. The tubes carry a 10-year term.
- Cast-iron cooking grids: Weight is the point here. The grids bank heat and release it slowly into whatever lands on them. Thin steel rod cannot mark meat the same way. Cast iron also wants oil and attention that stainless does not.
- Adjustable-height cooking grates: Broil King builds three grid positions into every Crown 500 Series model. Drop the grate to sear, raise it for skin that wants gentler heat. The adjustment needs no tools and nothing extra bought.
- Stainless steel: Stainless shows up in three places: the Flav-R-Wave layer, the tubes, the handles. Those vaporizers sit between flame and food, turning drippings into smoke. That layer is why a gas grill tastes of anything.
- Linear-Flow valves: The knobs sweep a full 180 degrees rather than a quarter turn. Twice the travel means twice the room to find a low setting. On a five-burner grill that matters.
- Electric igniter: Ignition is Sure-Lite electronic, so no lighter goes near the grate. It is the standard wear part on any gas grill. Keep the electrode dry and it stays reliable.
- Cast aluminum cookbox and double-walled lid: Therma-Cast aluminum forms the box under the grates. Double walls trap heat in the lid above them. Neither rusts through the way sheet steel eventually can. Broil King covers both for 25 years.
- Pullout tray for propane tank: The tank rides in a drawer inside the enclosed cabinet. Doors hide the cylinder and the hose. Changing tanks means pulling a drawer rather than crawling under the cart.
- Fold-down shelves and locking casters: Each side shelf folds down and locks, and both carry tool hooks. Four 3-in casters lock as well. That combination is what makes 178 lbs movable on a patio.
This grill runs the same fire as the Baron 520 Pro Shadow above it. Both carry 45,000 BTU across five Dual-Tube burners. Both list 570 sq-in of primary cook space. On heat alone, the cheaper badge changes nothing.
What the fifth burner buys is division, not raw output. The Crown S 490 splits 40,000 BTU four ways over 460 sq-in. A five-way split is the practical reason to move up. It leaves somewhere cool for food that is already done.
Then the valves double that advantage. Linear-Flow knobs travel 180 degrees rather than a quarter turn. The useful low range spreads across a long sweep. Fine control at the bottom is what indirect cooking needs.
Cast iron does the rest, staying hot when cold food lands. The one figure to treat carefully is the 780 sq-in total. Broil King reaches it by counting the warming rack, which is 210 sq-in. Compare the 570 sq-in primary figure and you compare like with like.
Build, handling and durability
The parts list on this cart punches above its badge. Rust ends most gas grills. There is no rust path through cast aluminum. Porcelain enamel covers a double-walled lid, capped at each end in cast aluminum.
Zinc-coated steel runs through the frame and the cabinet. At 178.0 lbs it feels planted rather than tinny. Push a corner and nothing flexes.
Paint is where the tier shows. Doors and side shelves are powder-coat painted, while the Crown S 490 uses stainless. Broil King’s own warranty ranks paint at 2 years. This grill is black everywhere, and black shows ash.
Moving it comes down to four locking casters and two folding shelves. Both help, though 61.0 inches of width decides where the grill lives. The tank drawer is the quiet win. Cylinders in a drawer get swapped without kneeling on wet gravel.
Running costs, upkeep and value
Broil King does publish warranty terms for the Crown line, but only inside a picture. The Warranty tab serves one image, its alt text reading “Warranty Image”. So the numbers are invisible to a screen reader or a search engine. Read the picture and the terms are good.
Cover runs 25 years on the cookbox, 10 on the burners, 5 on stainless. Then the ranking inverts the sales pitch. Cast iron carries 2 years and the heat medium carries 3. Those two parts stand directly in the fire.
One caution before counting on those years. The warranty art on the Amazon listing says 10 years on the cook box. Broil King’s own page is the source used here, and the two disagree.
The grids are the feature the whole Crown 500 Series is sold on. The box that almost never fails is covered longest. That is a defensible way to warrant a grill. It still means the parts you cook on are the parts you rebuy.
Upkeep follows from the same materials. Cast iron wants a scrape while warm, then a wipe of oil. Skip that and it goes orange. The Flav-R-Wave layer needs brushing to keep vaporizing rather than smoking.
On value, the metal per dollar is strong and the feature count is not. $999 buys the biggest grate and the most fire in the Crown line. The cast aluminum box behind it carries a long term. It also buys the only cart in that window with no second place to cook.
Possible Broil King Crown 520 Shadow Complaints
- Nothing burns except the main grate: No side burner, no rear rotisserie burner, no rotisserie kit. Sauce, beans or a bird on a spit all move indoors. The Crown S 490 below and the Baron 520 Pro Shadow above both have one. The gap is a choice, not a limit of the tier.
- The grids carry the shortest warranty on the grill: Cast iron is the headline material and gets 2 years of cover. Owners feel that in year three, when neglected grates start flaking. Keeping them dry, oiled and scraped is the whole mitigation. That is a habit, not a purchase.
